Inside Star Trek Discovery's mission to bring hope back to TV

On May 13, 2005, the final episode of Star Trek Enterprise was broadcast in America. The show's cancellation after four seasons marked the first time since Star Trek: The Next Generation premiered in 1987 that a Star Trek series wasn't either airing or in development. Its passing would mark the disappearance of the beloved sci-fi saga from television for over a decade.

In its place came JJ Abrams' reinvention for the big screen. Although it returned focus to Captain Kirk and the crew of the USS Enterprise NCC-1701, it created a divergent timeline, distinct from the events of original creator Gene Roddenberry's classic 1966 TV series. It also abandoned much of the nuance the series had become known for over the years. There would be no delicate examination of interplanetary politics or mind-bending parables that challenged viewers' understandings of human nature, only two-to-three-hour slices of bombastic action. The decision to title the 2009 movie that kicked off the Abramsverse simply Star Trek was a pointed one – as far as anyone was concerned, this was what Trek fundamentally was, now.

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British actor Shazad Latif plays Ash Tyler, a Starfleet officer and former prisoner of war, still dealing with PTSD.

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Yet to many fans, Trek's true home is on the small screen. The format, they say, allows for a deeper exploration of the core premise that lays at the heart of Roddenberry's vision: to seek out new life and new civilisations, to boldly go where no one has gone before – and to do so with more nuance and regularity than a blockbuster movie every three years allows.

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Which is where Star Trek: Discovery comes in. A slightly belated 50th anniversary project, Discovery isn't just bringing Trek back to TV, it's aiming to update how it functions in the medium.

The world of television is far different now than it was in 2005. Episodic genre shows are a rarity; the season-long arc is king. Discovery breaks from Trek tradition by presenting a 15-episode season telling one connected story, that of a cold war between the Klingon Empire and the United Federation of Planets, set ten years before Star Trek: The Original Series (or TOS).

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It will also be the first Trek series centred not on a Starfleet captain but instead on a First Officer. The focus falls on Michael Burnham, played by The Walking Dead's Sonequa Martin-Green, the first human raised on Vulcan.

Sonequa Martin-Green as First Officer Michael Burnham, "the only human to have not just attended the Vulcan Science Academy but excelled as well".

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Martin-Green describes Burnham as "the only human to have not just attended the Vulcan Science Academy but excelled as well, [which] speaks to Burnham's intellect and just sheer level of intelligence". As much as Burnham walks between two worlds, her human nature conflicting with her emotionally placid Vulcan upbringing, she also walks between two starships – the eponymous Discovery, captained by Gabriel Lorca (Jason Isaacs), and the Shenzhou, captained by Philippa Georgiou (Michelle Yeoh).

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"[She's] highly disciplined, highly principled, and the Vulcan-Human dichotomy that lives within her is emblematic of her personality. It is the two realities living within me at all times," Martin-Green tells me.

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Despite being a war veteran, Michelle Yeoh's Captain Georgiou retains a fundamental optimism for humanity's future.

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Discovery itself is walking a narrow line between evolution and fan service. There are plenty of nods to classic Trek – Rainn Wilson will appear as a recast Harry Mudd, The Next Generation's Jonathan Frakes is directing episodes, and Martin-Green's character was raised by Vulcan elder Sarek, making her Spock's adopted sister, after a fashion – even as the show introduces unseen planets, new alien races, and re-interprets elements of the older series for newer audiences.

Building the universe

Discovery, developed in conjunction between CBS and Netflix, has a budget to match its ambitions, with the studios reportedly spending roughly $8 million (£5.9m) per episode. Production takes place primarily on the Pinewood lot in Toronto, Canada – the largest soundstage in North America – but has also involved location shoots as far afield as Jordan.

"We're showing a side of the Klingons I don't think we've ever seen before"Ted Sullivan, producer

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On-set in Toronto, entire studio buildings were taken over by some of the largest sets ever created for a Star Trek series, with massive bridges for both the Discovery and the Shenzhou, labyrinthine networks of starship corridors with working doors, and even social spaces for the ship's crews.

Anthony Rapp's Science Officer Stamets is an astromycologist, specialising in space fungi - and named after real-world mycologist Paul Stamets

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The level of detail on display is astonishing, much of it subtly building the show's characters. A laboratory set to be staffed by Science Officer Stamets (Anthony Rapp) – incidentally the first openly gay character in Trek history – has an entire bay of exotic fungi, reflecting Stamets' specialisation in astromycology; while the private quarters of Captain Lorca features an array of melee weaponry that hint at his hawkish, militaristic personality.

Even more impressive though is the full-size bridge for the main Klingon vessel appearing in the show. A towering multi-leveled structure that appears more cathedral than starship, it's commanded by the zealous T'Kuvma, whose ambition of uniting the 24 great houses of the Klingon Empire is central to the Cold War premise of the season.

With ornate detail that extends down to Klingon script etched into the flooring and walls, T'Kuvma's ship is a vast departure from Klingon designs seen previously. Think the architecture of Antoni Gaudi blended with the xeno-organic horror of H.R. Giger, with an added dash of alien religious fundamentalism for an idea of what to expect.

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The Klingons viewers will meet in Star Trek: Discovery are unlike any seen before, both aesthetically and in their cultural outlook

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"The Klingons are part of Star Trek lore that go all the way back to season one of TOS, but what we're doing is showing a side of the Klingons I don't think we've ever seen before," producer Ted Sullivan tells me. "We're exploring the four different houses that are in the Klingon Empire, so we'll be seeing different clothing, different rituals, to what we've seen before."

"What the ship represents is an entirely different style [for Klingon] ships, architecture, even the clothing that they're wearing," he explains. "What we're seeing is a group of Klingons who have basically gone back to a Puritan way of life."

The design reflects a different purpose too – it will be a sarcophagus ship, carrying the honoured dead of T'Kuvma's house. That's a particularly interesting point, as dedicated Star Trek fans will know that the Klingons typically care little for their dead, with even their medical sciences poorly developed. The monoculture we've previously seen has been focused on strength – those who are injured or ill are left to fend for themselves, and those who die considered too weak to have cared for anyway. T'kuvma's divergent view not only adds richness to Klingon society, but it's a key part of the new direction Discovery is taking, exploring areas of the universe and the cultures that inhabit it in ways that viewers won't have seen before.

Doug Jones plays Lieutenant Saru, a member of the fish-like Kelpien race, who evolved to "sense death". He's also Burnham's best friend and confidant.

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One aspect of the Klingons that has rankled some fans is their updated appearance. While in TOS they were merely swarthy humans, adopting the now-familiar forehead ridges and fanged teeth as of 1979's Star Trek: The Motion Picture, when viewers meet them in Discovery, they'll have another makeover, one glimpsed in early trailers.

The new look – sleeker, vaguely reptilian, with leathered skin and an almost armoured skeletal structure – has invited accusations that the new series is ignoring continuity. The C word is one that Sullivan is keen to respect, but not be slave to though.

Discovery will reveal more of the fabled 24 Great Houses of the Klingon Empire, explaining some of the differences we see in uniforms, architecture, and theology

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"If you look at the classic series, Klingons were guys with moustaches taped to their faces and grease-paint on," he says. "When Gene Roddenberry had money for The Motion Picture, Mark Lenard played a very different type of Klingon, and when there was even more money for Star Trek III, they looked even more different. The thing about Star Trek is that it grows and it evolves, and as long as it pays respect to what has come before – which is what we've tried to do – people will embrace it. But at the same point, we have to use all the tools that are available that weren't available before."

Other than the divergent appearances being reflected by different houses, don't expect Discovery to spend much time on the genetic expression of the Federation's arch-enemies. Sullivan is keen to avoid falling into one of Star Trek's oldest traps – over-explaining.

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Although Enterprise dedicated an entire story-arc to explaining the smooth-headed Klingons of TOS – it confusingly had to do with a genetically altered virus which in turn tied back in to the augmented humans typified by iconic villain Khan – to Sullivan, the Deep Space Nine episode Trials and Tribble-ations dealt with the appearance problem best. There, with the DS9 crew thrown back to Kirk's era (and cleverly merged into a TOS episode) and face-to-face with old-school Klingons, ridge-headed Worf comments simply that "we do not discuss it with outsiders".

"Star Trek gives you hope, it's very inspiring"Michelle Yeoh

"You can't, in story, explain differences in appearance by saying, 'We have more money for effects now', even though that's the real-world reason," Sullivan says. "So that line perfectly dodges the issue. It doesn't need explaining."

That's not to say Discovery will be absent of canon or ignorant of what's gone before (or given its nature as a prequel, what's yet to come). I was pleased to notice a bottle of wine in Captain Georgiou's quarters labelled as from the Picard Vineyard – just one of several nods to observant fans.

A brighter future

Discovery isn't just bringing Trek itself back to television though – it's aiming to bring back a sense of hope and optimism, at a time when our media choices tend to favour anti-heroes and grimdark cynicism.

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Roddenberry's vision of the future was classically utopian. He foresaw a time where humanity had united under a single, progressive government, put its divisions of nationality, race, and creed aside, and ventured out into the universe in a spirit of openness. The Federation was a community of not just countries but entire worlds, and where starships were a means of exploration and wonder, not tools of war. At a time where the real world feels increasingly insular, where issues such as Brexit or Donald Trump's protectionist stances threaten to make the world smaller and meaner, Discovery wants to get back to that promise of a brighter path.

"We're trying to do a Star Trek that represents modern day society, which is we have to find a way to interact and learn and be and coexist," Sullivan says. "The more that everyone, whether it's the Federation or the Klingons, dig in and say, 'Not in my backyard', that's a problem, because in the end, it's everyone's backyard. Our hope is that this story represents where we are, and where we can go, in a hopeful way because Star Trek at it's core is a very hopeful series."

Michelle Yeoh says her Captain Philippa Georgiou "has great hope for humanity", making her the perfect mentor for the emotionally detached Burnham

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The cast agrees. Michelle Yeoh describes Captain Georgiou as "a veteran, she's seen the horror and brutality of war, but she has great hope for humanity." The need for hope, she says, filters right down to the core of their characters. "I think Star Trek gives you hope, it's very inspiring," Yeoh tells me.

"The essence has always been to reflect on things that are happening in the present, and talking about humanity and how we overcome and try to be better." Sonequa Martin-Green also recalls how important Trek's fundamental optimism has already been in impacting the real world. "I understand what it means to the world. I understand how reaching the legacy is," she says. "Nichelle [Nichols, Lt Uhura on TOS], she was an activist, and everyone knows about her legendary conversation with Dr Martin Luther-King Jr," Martin-Green says. "How he persuaded her, 'no, you have to get involved, you're going to further our image in this country and in the world by doing this, this is your purpose, you need to do it!' I think that reverberates in me as well, and always has. I've always been aware of that and what she did on TOS, and the leaps and bounds that TOS took – having the first interracial kiss on television."

"I believe seeing this utopian future, even with its challenges, is incredibly, incredibly hopeful"Sonequa Martin-Green

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Martin-Green is optimistic herself, thinking that Discovery will continue that trend and that audiences are hungry again for some hope in their entertainment. "Things are at a fever pitch right now, I believe we can all agree. The devastation, the oppression, the genocide, the division around the world, I think it has reached a fever pitch, and I absolutely think that it's causing people to lose hope in a lot of ways," she says. "So yes, I think people are looking for something to hold onto, they're reaching and grasping for glimmers wherever they may find them. It's why I feel so honoured and blessed to be a storyteller, number one, and to be telling this story, because I believe it speaks to that. I believe seeing this utopian future, even with its challenges, is incredibly, incredibly hopeful and inspiring."

For Sullivan, Star Trek has always been about addressing fundamental issues in the real world. "If we don't take into account where we've been as a culture and as a planet for the past 15 years, then we're not being true to Star Trek."

Star Trek Discovery premieres on Netflix UK on September 25, with new episodes added weekly.